The Briefing Room
General Category => Politics/Government => Topic started by: mountaineer on March 12, 2014, 06:16:33 pm
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(http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2014/03/12/jan-brewer-wont-seek-3rd-term-az/[Howard Fischer, Ariz. Capitol Times:[/url)Gov. Jan Brewer, who developed an international reputation for her vociferous attacks on illegal immigration, is ending her career as an elected politician at the end of the year.
But she’s not retiring from politics.
Brewer made the formal announcement this morning at Park Meadows Elementary School in North Phoenix. She chose the site because it is where two of her children went and, as a parent, she first got interested in politics and considered running for school board.
But Brewer instead took advantage of an offer by her husband, John, to finance a 1982 campaign for the Arizona House. And almost 26 years later from the date she became a legislator, Brewer slid into the office of governor — a post she said she never ever thought to seek — when incumbent Janet Napolitano quit to become Homeland Security secretary in the Obama administration.
The governor took no questions after the long-anticipated announcement, ending months of speculation she would wage a bid for a legally questionable third term.
But in a wide-ranging exclusive interview with Capitol Media Services on politics, her tenure and her future, Brewer insisted she could run again if she wanted, despite a voter-approved constitutional amendment limiting elected officials to no more than two terms or any portion thereof.
Brewer contends the first two years she served did not count because she was completing Napolitano’s term. Brewer said Napolitano’s resignation automatically made her governor in 2009 with or without her consent, meaning it was not “her” term.
“But there’s a time to be, and a time to go,” she said in opting not to push the issue. “It’s the right time for me to move on.”
Her decision avoids having the question decided by the Arizona Supreme Court, which has never looked at the issue. It also means staying out of what already is a crowded Republican primary with nine announced GOP contenders, including two statewide elected officials who hope to jump to the top spot.
Brewer sidestepped questions of who she might endorse, saying only her party “has a good bench of candidates.”
But in talking with Capitol Media Services, Brewer showed she clearly is contemplating having a political life beyond the governor’s office and will not be relegated to tending the garden and filling hummingbird feeders at her Glendale home.
“I’m not going away,” she said. “I’m going to participate, I’m going to speak out on issues that I believe that are important.”
And she’s going to get deeply involved in helping her party elect “pragmatic” candidates versus the “ideologues” who have taken hold within parts of the GOP.
Brewer can do that because she has the financial reserves in two political action committees to ensure she plays a role in Arizona — and national — politics for years to come.
“I don’t have a million-plus bucks sitting around not to do anything with it,” she said. That includes money she has raised both for Jan PAC, which can be used to elect candidates for president and congressional offices, as well as her Arizona’s Legacy PAC, which she is spreading around to elect like-minded Republicans to the Legislature.
Much of that money started flowing after Brewer signed SB1070, the 2010 state legislation aimed at giving police more power to detain and arrest those not in the country legally. While some provisions have been voided by federal judges, Brewer continues to fight in court to enforce the rest.
She continues to use the issue to keep those PACs well fueled.
A nationwide fundraising email this past week for Jan PAC tells how, as a border state governor, she’s seen the “dangers of unrestricted illegal immigration” like crime and violence and drugs.
“Now our children run the risk of living in a country that is less safe than the one we grew up in,” she writes, urging people to send money “right now … to hold Washington accountable and demand border security first.”
The governor also has a closed-door fundraiser later this week here in Arizona.
“I could probably be on the stump every week someplace in this country,” she said.
Brewer also said no one should be surprised if she shows up in the early caucus and primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire. She said, though, that would be in support of a candidate and not to get herself a slot as some Republican’s running mate.
But don’t look for her to spend her time and money boosting the ideologues who she said insist on support for every single plank of the platform and every anti-tax measure.
“The Republican Party that I always knew and that I was engaged with was the party of the ‘big tent,’”she said. Brewer said that reflects the idea espoused by former President Ronald Reagan that someone who agrees with the party on four out of five issues is a friend.
That, she said, has all changed.
“If you didn’t agree with 100 percent of those who say they are the leaders, then you weren’t a Republican anymore,” Brewer said, something she said that “turned a lot of people off.”
“I have hung in with the party despite a lot of people encouraging me to leave,” the governor mused, including when she backed a temporary one-cent hike in sales taxes in 2010 as an alternative to cutting $1 billion a year from the budget and, more recently, in deciding the state should use federal money from the Affordable Care Act to expand its Medicaid program.
And Brewer said the GOP’s problems extend beyond the demands by some for ideological purity. She said some of the party’s stances come across as just mean.
“The Republicans that I know and work with, they are kind, good people that just want to make our state and our country better for everyone,” she said. But Brewer said many of those in that camp find themselves ostracized by those party ideologues.
“They have closed the gates to the tent,” Brewer said.
“If you don’t agree with them, you’re not allowed in,” she continued. “And if you’re in, they want to kick you out.”
Armed with her war chest, Brewer said she wants to change that to elect more pragmatic Republicans. She said that reflects what has been her philosophy her entire life, and not just in politics.
For example, as a young wife and mother she was working in California to put her husband through chiropractic school. That led to a job managing a 175-unit apartment complex, a job she did not like but needed.
“It was just awful,” she said. “I got so sick of garbage disposals and broken toilets.”
But the curious upshot of all that is now, at age 69, Brewer said she can still fix anyone’s garbage disposal. ...
Read on (http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2014/03/12/jan-brewer-wont-seek-3rd-term-az/#ixzz2vm1kMa3H)
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Thank goodness. As to third term.. we have term limits in AZ
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I knew you'd be pleased, Rap.
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I knew you'd be pleased, Rap.
We have quite couple of good conservatives running, she was never a Conservative and fought our GOP legislature more than she ever worked with them.. so yes, I'm thrilled.
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Thank goodness. As to third term.. we have term limits in AZ
I don't understand how she has fallen from the people of AZ's graces so quickly? The same way I have no idea why Gov. Bobby Jindal is not liked by Louisiana anymore.
If she ran for President what would you say Rap? How bad is it?
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I don't understand how she has fallen from the people of AZ's graces so quickly? The same way I have no idea why Gov. Bobby Jindal is not liked by Louisiana anymore.
If she ran for President what would you say Rap? How bad is it?
She's under McCain's thumb.. same as Flake.. She raised taxes, implemented ocare in spite of our legislature...She vetoed every single bill they sent her until the finally gave in and passed Obamacare here...She only signed the immigration bill to get 're elected four years ago..I would never vote for her again for anything.
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Brewer won the GOP primary for Governor in 2010 with 80% of the votes.
She was elected Governor in 2010 by Arizona voters with 55% to 42%, over the democrat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_elections,_2010
All things considered, there was NOT a better REALISTIC alternative.
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And Brewer said the GOP’s problems extend beyond the demands by some for ideological purity. She said some of the party’s stances come across as just mean.
“The Republicans that I know and work with, they are kind, good people that just want to make our state and our country better for everyone,” she said. But Brewer said many of those in that camp find themselves ostracized by those party ideologues.
“They have closed the gates to the tent,” Brewer said.
“If you don’t agree with them, you’re not allowed in,” she continued. “And if you’re in, they want to kick you out.”
She's right about this. And this small tent will continue to get smaller if the litmus tests continue.
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She's right about this. And this small tent will continue to get smaller if the litmus tests continue.
If there ever is a true third party, it will largely look like the origins of the 2007 Tea Party movement, where Democrats, Republicans, and independents congregated to talk about fiscal conservatism, and to run candidates on that platform. Getting caught up in social issues is a political liability if the idea is to actually convert a wide range of people into a party platform.
Today's "Tea Party" seems more intent on destroying Republicans than actually running a small-government platform.
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She was noting but McCain's puppet, a RINO in the extreme.
Hopefully Arizona will do better next time.
And of course, all the leftists (oh I'm sorry "moderates") around here are now singing her praises.
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Brewer won the GOP primary for Governor in 2010 with 80% of the votes.
She was elected Governor in 2010 by Arizona voters with 55% to 42%, over the democrat.
I didn't need Wiki to tell me why she won big - I guess some here have selective memory but in April 2010 she signed into law a very controversial (outside of AZ) immigration bill. Until she signed this bill her ability to even win the primary was in doubt, after she signed the bill all opposition to her melted away and she won re-election handily....... that said since being re-elected her popularity has not grown, quite the opposite.
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I didn't need Wiki to tell me why she won big - I guess some here have selective memory but in April 2010 she signed into law a very controversial (outside of AZ) immigration bill. Until she signed this bill her ability to even win the primary was in doubt, after she signed the bill all opposition to her melted away and she won re-election handily....... that said since being re-elected her popularity has not grown, quite the opposite.
And to repeat:
"All things considered, there was NOT a better REALISTIC alternative." Realistic being the operative word, all spin aside.
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She should run for President.
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And to repeat:
"All things considered, there was NOT a better REALISTIC alternative." Realistic being the operative word, all spin aside.
Actually there was and he was polling quite well until she signed the bill then he stepped aside because it was clear at that point no one was going to defeat her since immigration is a #1 issue in AZ then and now.
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She should run for President.
:silly:
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She should run for President.
right /s I suppose if Hillary is your choice you would suggest a tax raising supporter of Obamacare a good candidate to oppose Hillary.
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right /s I suppose if Hillary is your choice you would suggest a tax raising supporter of Obamacare a good candidate to oppose Hillary.
I only like candidates who hold my opinion 100%. If they do one thing I don't like, they are garbage. :pondering:
This is the vibe I get from a few posters here, along with their me-too pals.
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I only like candidates who hold my opinion 100%. If they do one thing I don't like, they are garbage. :pondering:
This is the vibe I get from a few posters here, along with their me-too pals.
If I want tax increases and Obamacare I'd vote for a Democrat. She's been at war with our Republican senate and legislature for two years.
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I only like candidates who hold my opinion 100%. If they do one thing I don't like, they are garbage. :pondering:
This is the vibe I get from a few posters here, along with their me-too pals.
Seems that way at times. :shrug:
Still, Gov. Brewer has a track record and I am more inclined to listen to Rap in this case - it's her governor and not everything each Governor does makes the national stage. It's like I trust the Texans on here for a more honest assessment of Gov. Perry as a whole than I do the news, or our New York members for the real down low on what is going on there.
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I only like candidates who hold my opinion 100%. If they do one thing I don't like, they are garbage. :pondering:
This is the vibe I get from a few posters here, along with their me-too pals.
While I appreciate Rap's viewpoint regarding Jan Brewer. I won't dismiss the possibility Brewer may run and I will decide for myself and see how she does in the debates. There is a fine line between the McCains and Crists who are wolves in sheeps clothing and need to turn democrat or retire already. And others who have played the basic game of politics. No candidate is perfect. Take my senator, he at times was with the establishment in choices but I won't dismiss him. I can't throw the baby out with the bath water.
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While I appreciate Rap's viewpoint regarding Jan Brewer. I won't dismiss the possibility Brewer may run and I will decide for myself and see how she does in the debates. There is a fine line between the McCains and Crists who are wolves in sheeps clothing and need to turn democrat or retire already. And others who have played the basic game of politics. No candidate is perfect. Take my senator, he at times was with the establishment in choices but I won't dismiss him. I can't throw the baby out with the bath water.
Brewer is dumb as a box of rocks, she'll make Perry 2012 look brilliant.
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Seems that way at times. :shrug:
Still, Gov. Brewer has a track record and I am more inclined to listen to Rap in this case - it's her governor and not everything each Governor does makes the national stage. It's like I trust the Texans on here for a more honest assessment of Gov. Perry as a whole than I do the news, or our New York members for the real down low on what is going on there.
There are 4 states where a GOP governor has set up Obamacare compliant state health care exchanges. AZ isn't one of them. All Brewer is guilty of is signing that stupid immigration law.(I'm just kidding)
If you judge AZ politician by what Rapunzel says you will hate all of the GOP politicians. She doesn't like Gov Brewer, Sen McCain, Sen Flake, Rep Paul Gosar, Rep Matt Salmon, Rep Trent Franks....maybe she tolerates Rep David Schweikert, but she doesn't trust him. The rest of the Congressmen are rats and AZ has no LT Governor. Those are the big names in AZ and with the exception of Schweikert they've all been called RINOs by people less conservative than Rapunzel.
Please correct me if I'm wrong Rap.
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I only like candidates who hold my opinion 100%. If they do one thing I don't like, they are garbage. :pondering:
This is the vibe I get from a few posters here, along with their me-too pals.
I see the so called me-too pals as open to all candidates. While they are being painting with a broad brush of Cruz/Paul ONLY groupies by the die-hard, old guard GOP -tote the GOP line no matter what- group.
I also notice the diehard GOP posters that think the GOP is the cats meow and should never be challenged only seem to post about just this subject and never seem to branch out on the other various thread topics. Therefore the Obsession perfume is/was accurate -and funny- I don't care who you are :laugh: ^-^ :nometalk:
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I see the so called me-too pals as open to all candidates. While they are being painting with a broad brush of Cruz/Paul ONLY groupies by the die-hard, old guard GOP -tote the GOP line no matter what- group.
I also notice the diehard GOP posters that think the GOP is the cats meow and should never be challenged only seem to post about just this subject and never seem to branch out on the other various thread topics. Therefore the Obsession perfume is/was accurate -and funny- I don't care who you are :laugh: ^-^ :nometalk:
I know I'm obsessed by politics. :seeya:
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I know I'm obsessed by politics. :seeya:
:silly: Hi bachatcha :seeya: we all are political junkies. What I meant was there are some that only like sticking themselves with the GOP/Tea Party schism needle and nevah,evah,evah, switch to the other view point-or any other poli-junkie topics-. It is what it is, oh well, but to these folks I say: don't get the panties in a wad when someone (can't remember who) posts a perfume bottle called obsession.
Just sayin :nometalk:
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There are 4 states where a GOP governor has set up Obamacare compliant state health care exchanges. AZ isn't one of them. All Brewer is guilty of is signing that stupid immigration law.(I'm just kidding)
If you judge AZ politician by what Rapunzel says you will hate all of the GOP politicians. She doesn't like Gov Brewer, Sen McCain, Sen Flake, Rep Paul Gosar, Rep Matt Salmon, Rep Trent Franks....maybe she tolerates Rep David Schweikert, but she doesn't trust him. The rest of the Congressmen are rats and AZ has no LT Governor. Those are the big names in AZ and with the exception of Schweikert they've all been called RINOs by people less conservative than Rapunzel.
Please correct me if I'm wrong Rap.
First of all knock off the personal attacks... Second of all you don't live here and don't know what you're talking about.... and I don't recall seeing you at any of the Arizona Republican Women meetings I've attended.
I happen to like Gosar (my congressman) a lot - also like Trent Franks (my FORMER congressman) a lot... Matt Salmon is good, too. McCain sucks and Flake is his little mini-me and those of us who actually live in AZ instead of WI are well aware of this fact.
Oh and regarding Brewer and Obamacare - again you are flipping clueless........ she vetoed every single bill our GOP legislature and senate sent her until they approved her plan to expand here for Obamacare..... this and her tax increases have made her unpopular here.......... with the legislature as well as the voters.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/arizona-jan-brewer-medicaid-obamacare-92304.html
Arizona’s Jan Brewer becomes unlikely ally of Obamacare
Her entire week’s schedule is five words long: “Hold for budget, Medicaid negotiations.”
It’s a posture that’s confounding conservatives who once embraced her for signing a toughest-in-the-nation crackdown on illegal immigrants and for defying the Obama White House.
Brewer says it’s been quite the firestorm, but she insists that expansion saves money and saves lives — and that everybody would realize that if they weren’t so “hung up on the fact” that it was part of Obama’s health law.
”We were all so adamant that we didn’t like Obamacare. We fought tooth and nail. But there comes a time, and you have to look at the reality. You have to do the math,” Brewer told POLITICO in a phone interview. “I did not make this decision lightly. … It’s not only a mathematical issue, but it’s a moral issue.”
Brewer is not the only Republican governor to pursue Medicaid expansion, but she’s the most avid. Ohio Gov. John Kasich drew scorn from conservatives this week when, in a USA Today op-ed, he suggested Ronald Reagan would have supported expansion. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder recently invited Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to come lobby reluctant lawmakers. Florida Gov. Rick Scott, among the nation’s most vocal critics of Obamacare, stunned people on both ends of the spectrum in February, when he endorsed adding about 1 million Floridians to the Medicaid rolls. But he didn’t make expansion a centerpiece of his agenda.
Brewer, in contrast, has made a campaign-style push. She has held rallies with advocates who typically battle Republicans, given speeches, aired commercials and traveled the state pushing the message. Her spokesman, Matthew Benson, said an outside coalition, including the state hospital association, has helped raise $1 million for the effort with Brewer’s encouragement.
She predicts she’ll get her bill through the Legislature with support from Democrats and just enough Republicans. It could happen within a week or so.
But that won’t end the controversy.
“That we are getting Obamacare by our governor is shocking, to say the least. There’s no words to describe it,” said Christine Bauserman, a Republican activist from Pima County who says Brewer mistakenly thinks the Medicaid position will make her more popular. “I believe she’s in a bubble room wrapped with bubble wrap with cotton balls in her ears.”
Critics like Bauserman are promising to push for a ballot initiative that could stretch the fight all the way to the November 2014 elections and put the brakes on expansion until at least 2015. That would mean the state would lose out on the roughly $1.5 billion of federal Medicaid funds that would be available next year.
The second-term governor said her stance on Medicaid doesn’t mean she’s changed her mind about Obamacare. Her website still calls it “an assault on States’ rights and individual liberty.” But she explained, “Our Medicaid program was here long before Obama health care.”
She also said that Medicaid-related questions have been on the ballot in the state twice — and voters supported expansion of the state’s relatively generous program both times. Parts were later frozen because money ran short, but those federal dollars under expansion would reopen enrollment.
Many on the right have been apoplectic. National Review in a recent editorial described her push as “economic illiteracy” and a misguided “tantrum.” Republican analysts says she’s been seduced by the promise of billions of federal dollars to support Medicaid expansion or that she’s caved to the powerful hospital lobby.
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I didn't need Wiki to tell me why she won big - I guess some here have selective memory but in April 2010 she signed into law a very controversial (outside of AZ) immigration bill. Until she signed this bill her ability to even win the primary was in doubt, after she signed the bill all opposition to her melted away and she won re-election handily....... that said since being re-elected her popularity has not grown, quite the opposite.
Sounds like she has more in common with Juan McLame than differences. Good riddance, then.
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http://azstarnet.com/news/state-and-regional/brewer-says-killing-obamacare-now-could-cripple-the-state-budget/article_0abc3df6-135e-588c-b66d-b86f592c2820.html
Brewer says killing "Obamacare" now could cripple the state budget
October 10, 2013 12:00 am • By Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services
Gov. Jan Brewer said Wednesday that she does not want U.S. House Republicans to succeed in their bid to shut down the Affordable Care Act, saying it would “devastate” the state budget.
The governor said once it was clear the law would take effect, she sought ways to have Arizona take advantage of a key provision rewarding states that expand their Medicaid programs. In this state, that is the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, which she described as the “gold standard” of Medicaid programs.
And she said that made it worthwhile to fight with members of her own Republican Party, to the point of forming an alliance with legislative Democrats, to push the plan through.
“The bottom line is we need that money in our economy to save rural hospitals and jobs in the rural areas,” the governor said, as well as making sure hospitals in metropolitan areas, where most AHCCCS patients are seen, get paid. “It’s all about jobs and getting back federal dollars that our taxpayers have paid to the federal government, to bring them home.”
Brewer estimates the Affordable Care Act will produce $1.6 billion in payments a year to the state’s Medicaid program. And she said there is no direct cost to Arizona taxpayers, with the state’s share being paid by a tax on hospitals.
That concern is causing the normally partisan governor to lash out at congressional Republicans as much as she criticizes the president for the shutdown in Washington over the issue of repealing the Affordable Care Act.
“It’s pretty clear that the Obama administration does not want to compromise one iota,” the Republican governor said.
But asked if House Speaker John Boehner is wrong in refusing to put a clean “continuing resolution” on the floor for a vote — one without repeal or delay of the Affordable Care Act — Brewer said it would be wrong to put all the blame on that side.
“I will agree that Congress doesn’t want to compromise one iota,” she explained.
“They need to come together,” Brewer continued. “They have to understand it’s their job to get it done.’’
And Brewer said those involved need to be realistic and recognize that Obamacare was enacted, it remains the law and the votes are not there to repeal it.
In pursuing Medicaid expansion — and tapping into the Affordable Care Act — the governor caused a schism in her own Republican Party earlier this year. If the federal law goes away, the problems Brewer created in her party will have been for naught.
But the governor said that’s only a piece of the fallout if Arizona does not get the money from Washington she is counting on.
“If it doesn’t happen, then we will be faced with a calamity,’’ she said.
The state was able to ignore a voter-approved mandate to provide expanded Medicaid services because the courts ruled the initiative required Arizona to use only “available’’ funds, which at a time of budget crisis were limited.
Since then, state finances have recovered. It ended the last fiscal year with close to $1 billion in the bank, plus another $450 million in a “rainy day’’ fund — money Brewer said she fears a court would force it use to fulfill the voter mandate.
“We will be forced by the courts to take those dollars out of our budget to pay for it,’’ she said, meaning less money for other programs.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/arizona-medicaid-expansion-lawsuit-jan-brewer-obamacare
Victory For Brewer: Judge Tosses GOP Suit Challenging Obamacare Medicaid Expansion In Arizona
AP Photo / Jacquelyn Martin
BOB CHRISTIE – February 8, 2014, 6:19 PM EST15569
PHOENIX (AP) — A lawsuit challenging Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's Medicaid expansion plan that was filed by fellow Republicans in the state Legislature was dismissed in a ruling released Saturday, handing Brewer a major victory in her battle against conservative members of her own party.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Katherine Cooper agreed with Brewer that the lawmakers challenging the law don't have the right to sue, saying their argument that a hospital assessment included in House Bill 2010 that passed in June required a supermajority vote of the Legislature under Arizona's Constitution was incorrect.
Cooper's ruling said it is the Legislature itself that determines if a 2/3 vote is required under a voter-approved constitutional amendment called Proposition 108.
Brewer spokesman Andrew Wilder called the court ruling "a huge victory."
"Judge Cooper's ruling is thoughtful and legally sound," Wilder said in a statement. "As a result, the state can move forward with implementing the Governor's Medicaid Restoration Plan without further distraction of litigation, thereby restoring cost-effective health care to tens of thousands of Arizonans through AHCCCS, and honoring the will of voters.
"The governor hopes this will put an end to the case and she looks forward to continuing to work with lawmakers on other important state business in the coming weeks."
That's not likely. The suit was filed by the Goldwater Institute on behalf of 36 Republican legislators and several citizens, and Goldwater issued a statement saying it planned to appeal.
"Unfortunately, this ruling greatly damages Arizona's critically important voter-enacted constitutional protection requiring a two-thirds legislative supermajority for all new taxes, even when the government is responding to a 'crisis or emergency' or a program 'for the poor.'" Goldwater attorney Christina Sandefur said. "If this decision stands, it would enable a simple majority of legislators to vote to ignore a constitutional supermajority requirement when politically convenient, shielding that vote from legal challenge."
The hospital assessment is expected to collect $256 million in the state's 2015 budget year to pay the state's share of expanding Medicaid to about 300,000 people. Those to be covered include people earning between 100 percent and 138 percent of the federal poverty level and childless adults making less than that who lost optional coverage provided by Arizona when the state went through a budget crisis during the Great Recession.
Coverage began Jan. 1, and the most recent figures from the state' Medicaid program show about 100,000 people have gained coverage so far.
Hospitals strongly backed the assessment because they expect to see a much bigger reduction in the cost of treating uninsured patients.
Brewer is one of only a handful of Republican governors who embraced Medicaid expansion, a key part of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law. In all, 25 states plus Washington, D.C., are moving ahead with the expansion, while 19 states have turned it down. Another six states are weighing options.
Brewer spent months trying to get Republicans who control both chambers to support Medicaid expansion. She convinced a handful of Republicans to join all minority Democrats and put together a majority that supported the move, but leaders refused to let it come to a vote. She finally rammed it through in June after calling a special session to get around recalcitrant GOP House and Senate leaders.
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https://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/jan-brewer-s-obamacare-deception_736753.html
Jan Brewer’s Obamacare Deception
5:04 PM, Jun 18, 2013 • By JEFFREY H. ANDERSON
At least for now (although a statewide referendum may be pending), Arizona governor Jan Brewer, a Republican, has succeeded in her efforts to implement a key part of Obamacare in her state. Brewer has very aggressively — and entirely voluntarily — spearheaded the charge to implement Obamacare’s massive Medicaid expansion on her watch. She now claims, however, that she’s not really implementing Obamacare — or at least not any significant portion of it. In a recent interview reported by the Associated Press, Brewer said, “This business that this is Obamacare is a little bit interesting.” She added, “It is a very, very, very tiny portion of the Obama health care.”
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that what Brewer calls a “very, very, very tiny portion” of the health care overhaul will result in an estimated 11 million new people being dumped into Medicaid under Obamacare, where they’ll receive subpar care at taxpayer expense. Of the net 30 million that the CBO projects will become newly insured under Obamacare, those dumped into Medicaid will account for more than a third. (The CBO projects that, even after ten years of Obamacare, another 30 million people will remain uninsured.) Some of these 11 million people have employer-sponsored insurance today, but the CBO projects that roughly 4 million people will lose such coverage under Obamacare.
Brewer was under absolutely no legal obligation to implement this key aspect of Obamacare. As A.P. writes, “Brewer was an early critic of [Obamacare] and among a group of governors who lost the Supreme Court case that fought it, so it was a surprise when she announced she supported [its] Medicaid expansion.” In fact, it was the Obamacare Supreme Court case that gave Brewer and her state the choice to opt out of the Obamacare Medicaid expansion. The Court struck down the Obamacare provision that threatened states with the loss of their existing Medicaid funding if they refused to implement the Obamacare Medicaid expansion.
So Brewer sued and won — at least on this point. But instead of subsequently working to repeal Obamacare, she has instead worked to implement it. She fought the Republican-controlled state legislature and succeeded in converting a few Republicans to her — and the Democrat’s — side. Rather unrepentantly, she now says, “I've led the charge from Arizona to oppose it [Obamacare] — sued, we lost, they won, it’s the law of the land.”
The CBO projects that Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion will cost federal taxpayers about $750 billion over the next decade (2014 to 2023).
At the other end of the spectrum of Republican gubernatorial leadership, late last night, Maine governor Paul LePage vetoed an effort by both houses of the Maine legislature to implement Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion in the Pine Tree State.
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/01/19/how-jan-brewer-walked-arizona-into-obamacares-medicaid-expansion-trap/
1/19/2013 @ 2:48PM 10,944 views
How a GOP Governor Walked Arizona into Obamacare's Medicaid Expansion Trap
Avik Roy Avik Roy, Contributor
One of the most transformative aspects of Obamacare is that it conscripts state governments for the purpose of providing subsidized health insurance to their residents. Most red states have done their best to refuse, by declining to expand their Medicaid programs, and by passing up the opportunity to set up state-based insurance exchanges, through which Obamacare’s subsidies would flow. But a handful of Republican governors are doing their part to implement Obamacare. Arizona’s Jan Brewer, in particular, is proposing to do so in a way that sheds a lot of light onto the trap that Obamacare has set for state governments.
Earlier this week, Gov. Brewer recommended that Arizona go along with Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. Previously, parents and childless adults in Arizona were eligible for Medicaid if their income was below 100 percent of the federal poverty level. Gov. Brewer’s expansion would expand Medicaid eligibility to adults with income between 100 and 133 percent of FPL, and take additional federal money to fund Medicaid for childless adults below the poverty line.
“By slightly expanding eligibility for Arizona’s Medicaid program,” said Brewer in a statement, “Arizona will receive $7.9 billion in federal funds over four years…This money will not only insure hundreds of thousands of low-income Arizonans, it will be an economic boon and help maintain the viability of rural and safety-net hospitals feeling the pinch from growing costs of uncompensated care.”
Arizona’s checkered Medicaid history
Brewer’s decision—and her justification for that decision—are telling, and problematic. Like most Medicaid stories, it’s worth stepping back and understanding how Arizona got to where it is today.
Arizona was the last state in the Union to implement Medicaid, doing so in 1982, 17 years after Lyndon Johnson signed the program into law. Arizonans ultimately joined in for one reason above all: they faced the classic fiscal prisoners’ dilemma, in which states that forego federal Medicaid funds end up having their federal tax dollars go to fund similar programs in other states.
Since 1982, Arizona has made up for lost time. In 2000, at the peak of the dot-com bubble, Arizona voters passed Proposition 204, which expanded Medicaid eligibility to all state residents below 100 percent of the federal poverty level, even though many such individuals don’t get federally subsidized Medicaid coverage.
Soon after, through a waiver agreement with the federal government, Arizona received federal matching funds to cover the Medicaid subpopulation of childless adults, a group that normally didn’t get federal funding.
The hangover came quickly. During the recent recession, as Medicaid spending skyrocketed, Arizona faced a massive budget shortfall. The state decided to stop reimbursing Medicaid patients for organ transplantation in order to save money: what even liberals were calling a “death panel.”
In addition, the state was forced to freeze Medicaid eligibility for childless adults. As of July 2011, any childless adult who was enrolled on the program could stay on, but no new enrollees would be approved. Childless adults enrolled in Medicaid went from 227,000 before the freeze to 86,000 today: a decrease of 141,000.
Unfortunately, the state’s Medicaid waiver expires at the end of 2013. Kathleen Sebelius’ Department of Health and Human Services will have to approve any future agreements. Sebelius, in effect, gave Arizona two choices: opt out of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, and end coverage of childless adults through the program, or expand Medicaid as Obamacare attempted to mandate, for all individuals below 133 percent of the federal poverty level.
Brewer’s advice: take money from out-of-state taxpayers
Given this choice, Brewer went with the choice Sebelius favors: fleecing the taxpayers of other states. “For a state match of a little over $154 million in FY 2015,” Brewer’s office asserts, “the State can draw into its healthcare sector $1.6 billion in federal funds—a return on investment of more than 10-to-1.” Note Brewer’s abuse of the terms “investment” and “return,” given that what she’s really talking about is coercing out-of-state taxpayers to subsidize the previous mistakes that her state has made.
And that’s not the only way Brewer is hoping to get at federal dollars. She also proposes dramatically increasing taxes on hospitals in order to spend more money on Medicaid: a classic shell game that profligate states use to get more federal Medicaid dollars for each net dollar spent by the state.
Her excuse for this maneuver? It’s been done before. “The provider assessment would not be an unprecedented step, as Arizona already charges a 2% insurance premium tax [and] a provider tax on nursing homes in order to draw federal funds for special payments to the homes.” Translation: Arizona residents who pay for their own insurance face higher costs, so that Arizona can fund a Medicaid expansion that it can’t afford.
Medicaid’s hidden ‘woodwork’ costs
Gov. Brewer’s view as to Medicaid’s “return” on “investment” is flawed in other ways. She is putting her state on the hook for part of the cost for the substantial number of Arizonans who had always been eligible for Medicaid, but hadn’t signed up for the program. This “woodwork” phenomenon—what we might call Medicaid’s pre-existing condition—is crucial, because the state government is still on the hook for a big chunk of the Medicaid funding for these previously eligible individuals.
A 2010 study by two Harvard researchers found that barely half of Arizonans who were eligible for Medicaid in 2010 had signed up for the program. Note that this is prior to the 2011 budget freeze. (If Medicaid is so awesome, why is it that so many people who are eligible for the program don’t bother to sign up?)
And while the federal government is covering most of the costs of the Medicaid expansion, it’s not covering all of it. Moreover, there’s no guarantee that Washington will continue to fund the Medicaid expansion in future years.
Gov. Brewer claims to have solved this problem be including a “safeguard that rolls back enrollment if federal reimbursement rates decrease.” But, as Gov. Brewer should know, it’s not so easy to roll back Medicaid once it has been put into place. Why not avoid this risk altogether by putting more Arizonans onto the Obamacare exchanges, which are fully funded by federal taxpayers?
Undercompensated care is a bigger problem than uncompensated care
Brewer claims that expanding Medicaid will “help maintain the viability of rural and safety-net hospitals,” because the uninsured are allegedly consuming a lot of uncompensated care. But this isn’t true. It’s actually the Medicaid population that is responsible for much of the inappropriate use of emergency rooms, and Medicaid’s underpayment of providers is a far greater economic problem for most hospitals.
Obamacare’s exchanges, which subsidize a highly regulated form of private insurance, also kick in at 100 percent of FPL. The quality of coverage on the exchanges, while far from luxurious, will be meaningfully superior to that of Medicaid, and provide higher reimbursement rates to Arizona hospitals and doctors. By foregoing exchange-based insurance for Medicaid, Gov. Brewer is asking local hospitals and doctors to accept lower payments for their services than they would otherwise receive.
By far, the best course for Arizona would have been to opt out of both the state-based exchange and the Medicaid expansion. Arizona adults with income between 100 and 133 percent of FPL would still get federally subsidized coverage through the federally-run exchange, but the quality of that coverage would have been superior.
Moreover, as these lower-income Arizona residents moved up the income ladder, they’d be able to maintain their coverage, because Obamacare’s exchanges continue to subsidize insurance, on a sliding scale, up to 400 percent of FPL.
That’s important, because going with the exchanges instead of Medicaid removes a key disincentive for poor Arizonans pursue additional opportunities for self-sufficiency. Indeed, an able-bodied, childless adult at 80 percent of the poverty level would have a huge incentive to seek extra work, knowing that getting to 100 percent of FPL would allow him to sign up for subsidized coverage on the exchange.
Obamacare’s exchanges have their problems as well. Thanks to our health law’s economically illiterate spaghetti of costly mandates and requirements, coverage on the exchanges will cost a lot more than it should. But if a state government is to choose between Medicaid, America’s worst health care program, and the exchanges, I’d take the exchanges every time.
By siding with Medicaid over the exchanges, Jan Brewer is attempting to shoehorn her constituents into a lower-quality and less efficient program, force state and federal taxpayers to pay more, and financially destabilize Arizona hospitals and doctors. It takes a special kind of policy proposal to achieve that trifecta. Fortunately, it’s the Arizona state legislature that will have the last word.
UPDATE 1: The Wall Street Journal editorializes against Brewer’s decision, explaining the “provider tax” gimmick in detail:
One secret of her switcheroo is Medicaid’s “matching rate” formula, in which the feds pick up 67% of Arizona’s existing spending and 100% (and later 90%) of the costs of ObamaCare’s newly eligible population. The state supposedly no longer needs to spend “billions” but merely an extra $154 million in 2014—then bank $1.6 billion from Washington, which her budget documents call “a return on investment of more than 10-to-1.”
How can the state conjure such money from nothing? The answer is that Ms. Brewer and Arizona hospitals have cooked up a spending scheme to rip off national taxpayers to avoid even the $154 million the state would at first pay. The hospital lobby first floated this scheme in 2011 “for the specific purpose of generating matching federal Medicaid funds.”
Here’s how it works: Arizona will tax hospitals and insurers for the $154 million. Then it will return $154 million to the health industry via more Medicaid business that will cover the cost of the tax and then some. The money needs to make a round trip from providers to the state and back to providers to game that 67% federal matching rate.
So Arizona takes (say) $3 from a hospital and then turns around and pays the $3 back, using one of the hospital’s own dollars that Arizona converted to “revenue” plus two dollars courtesy of Washington for its 67% federal share of the $3 payment. Arizona can then use the hospital’s remaining $2 of the original $3 to pay for another $6 of Medicaid expansion.
Some 49 state now use this trick of so-called provider taxes to goose federal spending, up from 21 in 2003. (Alaska is the exception.) But the practice is so abusive that even Mr. Obama proposed new limits in his last two budgets.
This subsidy honeypot can’t last forever, which is why other Governors are more skeptical about this Obama Medicaid windfall. When the money inevitably runs out, states will retain permanently larger obligations and lose budget autonomy for a generation or two as health care crowds out other priorities like education and roads.
National Review‘s editors properly criticize the claim that expanding Medicaid will create jobs:
A third fiction is that this Medicaid spending will, in Governor Brewer’s words, “save and create thousands of jobs.” But as Professor Casey B. Mulligan of the University of Chicago has documented: “If carried out, this expansion is expected to reduce full-time employment among able-bodied adults.” Why? “Medicaid is a transfer, so it creates jobs in the sectors where it is spent, but it destroys jobs at the source of financing.” Expanding Medicaid may lead to a few new jobs for doctors, nurses, and other health-care professionals, but at the cost of jobs elsewhere in the economy. (And the subset of unemployed persons with licenses to practice medicine is small.) Welfare spending is not a job-creation program. That is basic economics.
UPDATE 2: Michael Cannon discusses Brewer’s argument that there is an “immigration glitch” in Obamacare that, she claims, partly drove her decision to expand Medicaid:
ObamaCare aims to offer some form of tax credit or subsidy to purchase health insurance to all citizens and legal immigrants below 400 percent of the federal poverty level (about $92,000 for a family of four). Generally, people below 138 percent of the poverty level would receive subsidies through their state’s Medicaid program, while citizens and legal immigrants between 100-400 percent of poverty would receive tax credits and/or subsidies to purchase private health insurance through state-created health insurance “exchanges.”
In a slight departure from those general rules, Congress also made legal immigrants below 100 percent of poverty eligible for those Exchange subsidies. Why? ObamaCare originally would have required states to expand their Medicaid programs to all citizens up to 138 percent of poverty level. But since states have the option of excluding legal immigrants from their Medicaid programs, and could continue to do so under that expansion, Congress made legal immigrants below the poverty level eligible for Exchange subsidies if they live in one of those states. Since ObamaCare supporters expected all states to implement the Medicaid expansion, they reasonably believed all citizens and legal immigrants below 400 percent of poverty would receive some form of tax credit or subsidy.
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First of all knock off the personal attacks... Second of all you don't live here and don't know what you're talking about.... and I don't recall seeing you at any of the Arizona Republican Women meetings I've attended.
I happen to like Gosar (my congressman) a lot - also like Trent Franks (my FORMER congressman) a lot... Matt Salmon is good, too. McCain sucks and Flake is his little mini-me and those of us who actually live in AZ instead of WI are well aware of this fact.
I'm sorry you took my post as a personal attack. I assumed the AZ congressmen were too liberal for your tastes. Thank you for correcting me.
I thought you didn't like Gosar because Club for Growth doesn't.
07/13/2012
Paul Gosar Admits He Won’t Fight For The Constitution
http://www.clubforgrowth.org/perm/pr/?postID=1124
Franks endorsed McCain for reelection in 2010
http://superstition912teapartypatriots.ning.com/events/glendale-attend-tea-party-and-hold-matt-salmon-s-feet-to-the-fire?xg_source=activity